Praying for a path to Japan

Since about halfway through my last two week trip to Japan in September 2006, I have been sensing that God has work for me to do by serving him in Japan. At first, I thought it was in the rural beach community of Ichinomiya Beach (Chiba), where I first had this feeling. This is home of some new and dear Christian friends, as well as, Christian Surfers Japan. As I continued to pray about this idea during the fall, I started to consider some potential options in Chiba, which was my first choice of an area to consider serving.

I also started to explore the concept of "Business As Ministry" (BAM), and began to think more about my spiritual gifts, heart/passions, abilities, personality, and experience (SHAPE). The more I considered my SHAPE, the more I started to think that God might want to use me in Tokyo in a BAM capacity. In November, I revisited EQUIP, which teaches a BAM framework and then deploys it in context of a consulting venture with small to medium companies. More than a handful of friends and former work colleagues have taken the EQUIP path, something I've thought about for years now. I guess it wasn't the right season for me before to consider EQUIP seriously. However now in the context of seeking the Lord's plan for my life and occupation/calling, especially in relation to my desire to serve him in Japan, it really makes sense for me to take the EQUIP training. This training has been opening my mind to how often business and ministry are viewed by Christians as separate things, which don't need integration. The EQUIP training is reorienting my thinking about the purpose of being in business and it seems like great preparation to working in an intense business culture like Tokyo.

In December, after attending the "Open for Business" track at Urbana 06 and talking to a variety of people at the conference who are doing ministry (many in Japan), I felt further confirmation that there is a GREAT need for people to serve within the city of Tokyo in the context of the business environment. The work culture of Tokyo has a reputation of being very intense with long hours. There are two evening rush hours on the Tokyo train system, roughly about 6:00p and 11:00p. It's very common for men to commute into the city from the suburbs, going to work very early and returning home very late. Some men keep an apartment in Tokyo to avoid the long commute, but this separates them from their families during the week. Often they really only see their families on the weekends, and then the dads are so tired they want to sleep most of the weekend to rest. In Tokyo, there's also a bustling singles or young professionals culture that thrives after work. It's not uncommon for people to go out with coworkers and friends most nights after work until the wee hours when the bars close. Sometimes they go to an Internet cafe to catch a few hours sleep if they miss their last train and can't get home before the next work day.

Two themes kept coming to mind, as I have talked to people who work in or are familiar with the Tokyo work culture. First, people often still follow the post-WWII work model of working long hours, which was necessary after the war to rebuild the country. But the country is rebuilt and most Japanese don't really have any physical needs like the rest of Asia or the developing world. Perhaps it's time to back the throttle off now folks! You've built the country, now learn to relax a little and recharge in healthy ways. I really sense there isn't much life work balance in Tokyo, especially when I compare it to San Francisco's and Silicon Valley's "work hard / play hard" culture. I have become so accustom to the work culture of the technology sector, where flex hours and working at home or at the office are all fluid variables. A culture that values getting things done over "face time" in the office. It's still common in Tokyo for staff to be in the office until their manager leaves for the evening.

Second, the suicide rate in Japan has skyrocket over the years, which has started to include young children. 2005 marked the eighth consecutive year that suicides in Japan topped 30,000 people, as well as the eighth consecutive year that the suicide rate exceeded 24 per 100,000. Two recent trends which have received extensive coverage in the media are suicides by youths attributed to schoolyard bullying, and "netto shinju" or group suicides arranged on Internet websites.

Japanese tradition and society have wonderful qualities, but on a whole people seem to sense there must be more to life than working so hard at school or work. People are looking for a true purpose. Often people ask me, "Why are you so interested in ministry in Japan?" Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how Japan is a culture that doesn't really have any material poverty, but their spiritual poverty is great! This fact really greaves my heart, and as I walked around the exhibit booths in Urbana 06 and saw all the opportunities to go to places with such great needs: Africa, China, South East Asia, to name a few. I thought most people seem to be overlooking Japan, which is the one place I really feel called to make an impact for the Lord's kingdom. I think most people don't think about Japan and the true spiritual poverty that exists there.

I have been encouraged by my new friend Bob (who I met at Urbana 06) to pray about what sort of mission God would use me for in Japan. Even to pray about how many Japanese could come to know Christ within a given time frame. Recently, I was praying early in the morning about this and I thought "Perhaps God would create the same number of Christians that are now in South Korea in Japan too within the next 8 years." That number seems really big to me in such a short time period, but God doesn't do things small, so let's aim high! :) After I finished praying, I checked my email and I had one from Bob. Here's the sentence that really woke me up that morning. "Richard...I believe the bare minimum would be to ask for at least what He has accomplished in South Korea, except that in this current acceleration of peoples being harvested into the Kingdom, a much shorter time period, possibly as little as 8 years, using II Timothy 2:2 Faithful Men ... and the ability He will give you and your teams to quickly find and disciple them as disciplers of disciplers of disciplers ..." When I read this only minutes after I had a similar thought in prayer, I was really awake!

As I consider this huge idea and the potential of moving to Tokyo in 2007, I will continue to dive into the Word, my Equip training, and boldly seek the Lord's plans for service in Japan. Please pray that I will have clarity on this. Domo arigato gozaimasu!